Merry Christmas!

Who do you LUV??

These are my 4 favorite people in this world!

We had such a fun day! Hubby stayed home from work, we played in the snow... built a snowman... made hot chocolate... and took a long nap... priceless!!

How Big is a Puddin Pop Kid??

Well, I delivered 19 Puddins, 3 Peanuts, 2 dresses and a scotty rattle this weekend!! Only 9 Puddins, a few aprons and a couple of dresses to go to finish out the Christmas orders! Things have been busy here! On top of all of the sewing we have tried to make some family time and enjoy the true meaning of the season. We had a wonderful weekend and I will share more on that later.

For now I needed to address something I heard a lot of this weekend... "I didn't know they were that big!" Apparently, my photography skills are lacking and I should have been adding the size to the info on the dolls. The dolls range in size from 19-24 inches. So, they are not little as the picture might make some people think. I don't use a pattern so each doll truly is unique and one of a kind. The size just depends on what I cut out!!

Speaking of cutting out... I had better get to it if I want to finish anytime soon!Below are a few of the babies I delivered this weekend!
Have a great day!

BUZZZZZZ

Do you hear that sound??? No, it's not crying. No, it's not Santa's reindeer. It's the sound of my sewing machine buzzzzzzzing away! That baby has been working hard the past few days! Speaking of which- I better get back to it! I'll have pics to share soon!
Oh- BTW- the waiting is over!!! I have green babies to share! (later- gotta get back to work!)

Much love,
Melissa

Waiting

I am waiting. I have been waiting for 2 1/2 weeks. Waiting does not make me happy when there is really no reason I should have had to wait in the first place. UGH!

I recently had an order for 2 darling Puddin Pop Kids and the request was for green minky fabric. Unfortunately, I was out so I went to the local unnamed fabric store to purchase some. I then found out that they were also out but was assured they could order it for me and it would arrive in a week. That was 3 weeks ago. I found out on Tuesday night, after I had been over to the store 2 other times to pick up my missing fabric, that the fabric HAD NEVER BEEN ORDERED!!! Better still.. it was SEASONAL and they couldn't have ordered it anyway. Now, why wasn't I told that from the beginning?? Or maybe on my 2nd or 3rd visit to the store to pick up the fabric?? So, tonight I decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and to believe that maybe, just maybe the manager didn't know what she was talking about. I drove over there again believing I would find my fabric sitting on the shelf...I.DID.NOT!

So tomorrow, after dance class, with 3 hungry, sleepy children, I will drive to
Mt. Juliet in pursuit of green minky fabric... wish me luck!! Better yet, pray for me!!
BTW-I forgive the local store... I just don't/ won't depend on them anymore.
Thanks for letting me vent and if you are the sweet, patient person waiting for your adorable green Puddin's... hang on! They're coming!!

babies... update

I had a doctor visit yesterday to check up on my little nuggets. Shepherd is doing great! He has flipped head down now but is quite the wiggly little guy! Even though the ultrasound pictures are sometimes hard to see I just think he looks absolutely precious!! When the tech started he and Emery were head to head...must have been sharing secrets at that time. Anyway, once she was ready to scan Emery she was gone! The little stinker had flipped the opposite way and was trying to get away! Poor little Shepherd kept getting kicked in the face!!! She was doing somersaults and flips like crazy! At one point it looked like she was laying on he back and lifting her legs up over her head! She was definitly stretching out!!

They are both so precious.. it still amazes me the capacity to love someone so much that you have never really seen! Hubby and I feel so blessed to be the mommy and daddy of all of our little ones, these 2 included. I can't wait to hold them and see their little faces! Each phase of babyhood on up has been my favorite! isn't that wierd?? I just love it all. Don't get me wrong, a little more sleep and peace would be nice too but watching them develop and seeing those personalities emerge is definitly a blessing.

Unless of course, one unnamed Monkey turns quickly into a possessed, screaming, raging monster that you have absolutely no idea what to do with... I'll save that post for later. I am actually still recovering from that event and may need therapy!!
Happy Thursday to all of you!

Puddin's In Stock and available

Here are the PPK's I have left in stock. These dolls sell for $20 each. If you see one you like let me know!
Details about each PPK is listed below the photo.

Girl Puddin- pink minky fabric- brown eyes- red wavy hair- brown dress with pink polka dots- Scripture reads: "And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God." Romans 5:2- Doll measures 22 1/2 inches from head to toe.



Boy Puddin- Green minky fabric- red wavy hair- black eyes- john deer overalls- Scripture reads: "For you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. 1 Peter 1:23- doll measure 22 1/2 inches from head to toe.



Girl Puddin- Blue Minky Dot fabric- brown highlighted hair- brown eyes- yellow dress with ribbons- Scripture reads: "Let your light shine!" Matthew 5:16- Doll measures 22 inches from head to toe.



Girl Puddin- Yellow Minky dot fabric- brown wavy hair- brown eyes- purple dress with ribbons- Scripture reads: "Jesus said, Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Matthew 19:14- Doll measures 23 inches from head to toe.




Boy Puddin- purple chennile fabric- green overalls- blue eyes- brown hair- Scripture reads: "Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10- doll measures 24" from head to toe.




Boy Puddin- Blue minky dot fabric- sports themed overalls- brown highlighted hair with brown eyes- Scripture reads: "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith." Hebrews 12:2- doll measures 22" from head to toe.

Pillow Case Dress

I had a few people ask to see Puddin's pillow case dress for Thanksgiving. It's made of the same fabric as the one I featured before but I put Puddin's name across the bottom instead of her initial. Unfortunatly, this is the best picture I have been able to snap so far! I did find some beautiful fabric to make her and her new baby sister matching dresses for the spring! They are going to be soo cute!! Now, I just have to find something coordinating for the boys! Yes, I am one of those moms!!

HELLLOOO!

Things have been super busy here as with everyone else I'm sure! Anwyay- just a quick post to say what a great Thanksgiving we had with 3 sick little ones! It all worked out though and we ended up having a great day!

Also a quick note to say that I will be closing Christmas orders for all things Puddin Pop on Dec. 15th. So, if you want to order please put your order in before the 15th!! So far, I am running about a week turn around time for those poeple who are local to the 'boro. If you live outside of the boro it takes a little longer due to delivery. this includes dolls, aprons, quilts, rattles and pillow case dresses.
I plan to open orders back up in January but I also have nursery to put together sooo... wish me luck!

Blessings!!!


enjoying a little popcorn as they watch an all time favorite.... Barney!

'Bout this time last year....

I was thinking last night as I watched my luvies play that they have changed soooo much! It's amazing how quickly time flies! Just imagine this time next year!!! WOWEE!Next Thanksgving I will be loving on a 4 year old, two 2 year olds and two 8 month olds!! God is so good!
Anyway, here are some pics of my luvies.. minus hubby.. he hasn't changed since I married him!! Enjoy!

For Isabella

This is a sweet little "Thanksgiving" dress I made for a friend's little one. Finding Cute Thanksgiving fabric was not easy so I opted for something other than turkeys. I think it turned out super cute! Of course, I made one for Puddin too!

What's in stock??

I've had several orders come in lately and lots of questions about what colors and fabrics I can use to make the PPK's and aprons. I thought it might be easier to just post what I have in stock for you. Hope this helps!

chenille fabric is pink, cream, and blue (used to make the bodies of the Puddin Pop Kids)



minky dot in stock (also used to make the bodies of the PPK's) Available in pink, yellow, blue, cream and hot pink. Limited supply of baby blue left).



Micro fleece (also used for bodies. Very similar to minky dot but without the dots). Available is pink, blue and green.



This fabric is available for the PPK skirts. The last fabric is a little harder to see. It's actually chocolate and hot pink polka dots.



Fabric for the PPK boy's overall's... plaids and gingham. Not pictured: red gingham.



fabric available for little girl's aprons. Hot pink/ green, Turquoise/brown, pink/brown. Not pictured: limited supply of pink/ white polka dots.



The other question has been about price... the Puddin' Pop Kids are $25 for a custom doll and $20 for dolls already in stock. Apron's are $12. Baby Quilts (not pictured in this post) are $40 and can be customized to meet your needs.
Please contact me if you have any other questions. If you leave a message in the commnet box it will be sent directly to me and I will answer asap.
Have a great night!

For Meredith

This little Puddin' Pop is for a special little girl named Meredith. She can't wait to move to Arkansas and be with you Meredith! Happy Thanksgiving!

Princess Dreams

I love my Puddin. She is such a joy and everyday I am so grateful to be her mommy! Each day I get to see more and more of her personality develop. She definitly has her favorite things. Right now they include:
1. Princesses (anything princess related)
2. Her friend M*****n. She LOVES playing with her!
3. Going to church
4. Her new babies, especially her sister.
5. Her family
Now let me say, princesses usually rank #1 but the rest can be interchangable depending on her mood. This weekend my mom was talking to her about when her new baby sister gets here. She told Puddin that they could be princesses together and baby Emery could share her princess dresses. This was quickly met with a stern frown and reply, "NO! I will wock the door!" (When she plays with her toy princess dolls she goes in her room where her sweet, little brothers can't get them and run... which they like to do quite often! Who would have thought terrorizing your sister would start so early??)

Anyway, I quickly explained that it would be a while before Emery would be able to play princess with her and that Puddin's princess dresses would be much too big for her. I would have to buy Baby Emery her own little princess dress. That satisfied her and she was fine. Anyway, I say all of this to tell you that she apparently dreamed about it last night! This morning Hubby went upstairs to wake up the kiddos and start the "Sunday morning rush to get to church on time" craze. As he was waking Puddin he said she suddenly said to him, "Daddy, I am a princess and I'm gonna play princesses with my new baby sister and my mommy is gonna buy her a wittle princess dress!" SO, SO Sweet!!! Oh how I pray that she and Emery have a strong bond and will be close as they grow up! She loves her little sister and her little brothers so much! Tonight she even sand a song to Baby Emery and Baby Shepherd and ended with "I wuv you soooo much!"
My heart melts!

The Great Debate.... Cloth vs. Disposable

Well, we have made the switch. Yes, some of my dear friends have called me crazy but we went ahead and took the plunge. We have switched from disposable diapers to cloth. I know.. crazy, right? Let me explain...

Very, very soon we will have 4 children in diapers, all the time, every day and 1 still wears them at night. My friends, that is a lot of diapers and a lot of money! When Puddin was a baby I had played around with the idea of doing cloth but never took it seriously. Anyway, after I calculated the cost of 4 children in diapers I quickly started to change my mind.

So I started with 2 diapers and tried them out. Let me just say, they were AMAZING!!! Cloth diapers have come a long way since the 70's.These things are great! They have velcro closures, a waterproof, leak proof barrier and SUPER absorbent padding! We have been using them for a month now, every day without fail and have never had a leak! Not ever! Plus, as an added bonus, they are so absorbent I don't have to change diapers nearly as often as I did before. My monkeys go a lot. So before I woud have to change them every 2-3 hours and we were running through a ton of diapers. Now I can easily go 4 hours in 1 diaper and they are fine. They are so absorbent that when I change them their skin is dry! Truth be told, on Monday they were in the same diaper from 8:15-1:00 because we were out around town and busy and I just didn't get to change them!

Now, I know you are all wondering about the poopies. Yes, they are nasty... not fun at all, but it really isn't that bad. I just rinse them in the potty and drop them in a bucket of hot water and oxy clean until I have a load of diapers to wash. When I consider the $$ I am saving will help put Puddin in preschool next year it's all worth it! And honestly, had I know it was this easy I would have used cloth a LONG time ago!

In case you're curious, we are using the bum genius brand ***fabulous***. We bought ours off diapers.com but here is a link to the website http://www.bumgenius.com/. Hopefully when the monkeys are awake from nap I can snap a couple of pics of them in their fabulous diapers to add to this post!

For now, I'm off to enjoy naptime!

Baby Quilts

I promised a while back to show some pictures of the quilts I have finished. So here they are...they are made of the same fabrics the PuddinPop Kids are made from. I usually add a scripture to them but sometimes I have requests for names and DOB or wight and length. I added the ribbon taggies to them because from my experience, babies love tags! Anyway, they are super snuggly and soft, machine washable (gentle), double stictched and great, great baby gifts! The quilts are $40 if anyone is interested.

More Puddin's

Well the past few days have been super busy. I finished a big order of Puddin's going to my hometown and went to a craft fair here in Murfreesboro. There have been lts of things going on so I have tried to recouperate and rest on top of everything! Plus, I am just itching to get my Christmas stuff out and set up... but a little worried as to how the monkeys are going to react to the tree! And, I am also trying to figure out how to put together this new nursery.. fabric, colors, etc. I'm thinking of going along the same lines I did with Puddin and do a children's book theme but I'm just not sure yet. I welcome your ideas! If you have a suggestion please leave a comment and let me know!

Anyway, none of that really has anything to do with this post so let me get to the point! Here are a few of the Puddin Pop Kids that will be heading to Pulaski this week. I think they just turned out great! Each one definitly has it's own personality!

Fresh Fall Leaves

Today was a fun day. We spent a little time runing errands this morning then just relaxed and had fun in the beautiful weather. What a perfect fall day! At first we were going to visit the Oaklands Mansion for our annual romp in the leaves but after driving by and seeing that most of Murfreesboro had the same idea, I decided it would be much more fun to play in our own leaves, in our own backyard. So we headed to Walmart for a rake and then home for some fun. I have to say, the leaves were falling as fast as I could rake them and Puddin was so excited!! The birds were making tons of noise and catching the boy's attention. I raked, and raked and raked until finally we had 2 decent piles that I could combine together and then the kiddos started jumping! What fun they had!! And of course, me, being the mommy that I am, thought, "What a great Christmas card this would make!"... remember once before when I mentioned photo ops and how hard they are with multiple children??? Well, once again I experienced the frustration of the perfect picture not happening! I could never get all 3 kiddos looking at me at the same time!! And then, the camera dies! Dead battery! Oh well! It was all worth it! We sure had a lot of fun!!
Enjoy the pics!

The results are in!!!

Wow! What a busy day it has been for our family! Thank you to all of you who "voted" on my little poll!!! I thought it was fun to check back and see what you thought! For those of you who voted for the boy/girl combo... you were RIGHT!!! We are so excited to announce that we are indeed having a baby boy and a baby girl! We stopped on the way home form our appointment today and picked up a couple of balloons for the kiddos to remember this day and also as a way of telling our parents who were patiently waiting for news at our house.

We had a few scarey moments when I was being scanned and the tech said to Puddin, "Well, you've got a little boy!" Apparently, I had not prepared our tech enough, although I had warned her of the expectations that Puddin had. Anyway, Puddin's reaction was a bit dramatic (of course!) She immediatly started to yell, "No bruders!! I don't want no bruders!! I want baby sisters!!" Poor thing was on the verge of tears so immediatly we swung into action trying to calm her. I reminded her that we still had 1 more baby to see and it MIGHT be a girl but that her baby brother would love her very much! I also reminded her that even Dora(the Explorer) has a baby brother and a baby sister and they are SUPER babies! That seemed to help a little. As they were scanning baby A (boy's) heart Puddin noticed the chambers as they were beating and they sort of look like they were waving. This is where she seems to soften up a bit more to him. She notices the "wave" and says, "oh, my new baby bruder is wavin at me!" SO SWEET!!!

Next our teach moved on to check baby B. Anxiously awaiting the news does not adequatly describe what was going on in that little room. I think hubby and I were both holding our breath afraid of what might happen if Puddin didn't get at least 1 sister. Even the tech said, "You know, the odds are against you right now!" GREAT!! THANKS!! But GOD answers prayers and HE new we needed another sister for our family! She checked the baby, and I was watching. She double checked and triple checked before she made the announcement. Finally she said, "It looks like your gonna get a girl!" Poor Hubby was so nervous, I think he was afraid to believe her. He kept saying really, are you sure? But not Puddin, "YAY!" was her reaction and then she started to jump up and down in the room! What a relief!!! We are so excited to have both of these precious babies! I know they will be such blessings to our family!!Below is a picture of Puddin, Monkey See and Monkey Do with their balloons. Oh- If I had only had my camera with me during the ultrasound to capture the looks on her face throughout the experience! Priceless!

So many of you have asked about their names so we thought we'd share what we have so far...The last 2 pictures are of our sweet babies Shepherd and Emery. Have a great night!!

Baby Shepherd... blowing kisses!


Baby Emery...sucking her thumb!